Bumper to Bumper
by Mizzykitty
Summary: Misunderstandings can lead to a very messy situation! Implied Shingo/Takeshi with a bit of Iwaki Seiji thrown into the mix.
1. Chapter 1

Part I

The white Mitsubishi squealed around the corner with surprising speed as Seiji slammed it into gear. The Evo's stocky body rocketed forward when he mashed the accelerator to the floorboard. Needles dipped frenetically in the luminous gauges as the force of the turbo flung the WRC bred car from stoplight to stoplight. Seiji ground his teeth in pure rage, gripping the steering wheel so hard that he left faint impressions in the slightly spongy material.

"Fuck! FUCK!" he cursed over and over as he ignored stop signs and blew through orange lights. "I can't believe it! Fuck!"

Frustrated and unable to adequately express his fury with his limited vocabulary, the Tochigi driver took it out on his car. Again and again he was pushed back in the Recaro seats by the sheer force of acceleration, and then thrown against his harness as he screeched to a halt for red lights. Earlier in the night, he had lost an important race to a relatively new team from Maebashi. Even as he drove he could barely remember their team name…Sky-something. He glowered darkly. It had been a simple race against an R34, and he had made a complete fool of himself. And to make matters worse, Kyouichi had chewed him out in front of the whole team, even going so far as to call him an idiot to his face.

"That bastard Sudou! Who the hell does he think he is? Fuck him!" he shouted, his ears crackling slightly in the enclosed space.

But deep down, he knew he couldn't exactly blame him. It wasn't Kyouichi's fault that he had lost. Even so though, he wasn't about to admit he was wrong. Not now, not yet.

* * *

Shingo sighed as he took another swig of beer. He had had the proverbial day from hell. The hotel had been hosting a conference of some kind, resulting in a multitude of curt businessmen coming and going at all hours, which had kept them busy for most of the day. And then, just as the event was drawing to a close, and all the staff was getting ready to breathe a collective sigh of relief, the most awful thing had happened: one of his coworkers accidentally slammed into the corkboard that held all the keys to the cars in valet parking. The board had been knocked off its hook, and the keys scattered all over the floor. It had been disastrous…no one knew which keys went to which car went to which customer. Add a flock of irate men in business suits to the mix and they had a mess the size of a small nuclear holocaust to clean up. He had wanted to leave there and then…just sneak out the back with the commotion to screen his exit. But unfortunately, after having been with Mr. Don't-do-that-it's-gasp-wrong-Nakazato for some time now, he'd actually developed a conscience.

"Fat lotta good it did me," he mumbled under his breath.

"What?" Michi grunted, weaving slightly as his eyes focused on Shingo.

"He's still grumbling about work. Aren't you?" asked Keichi, nudging him with a lopsided grin.

The EG6 driver glared at him.

"It's not funny!"

Keichi merely laughed at his teammate's irritated glare.

"Come on, man. Get over it; it's just work. And besides, we've got the whole weekend ahead of us!"

Shingo frowned. The trouble was, it wasn't "just work", as if his job was a separate entity from the rest of his life. A couple months ago, the hotel had made some serious cutbacks in both staff and salaries to make ends meet. Consequently, the staff had been forced to work longer hours for lower pay. This eventually led to the continual lack of funds and the stacks of unpaid bills that were stressing him out to the point where his patience, already notoriously non-existent, was stretched to the point of snapping. Unfortunately, the first person within snapping distance was usually Takeshi, and he knew his heightened irritability was taking a toll on their relationship. He was starting to feel as if his life were nothing more than a set of cascading dominos.

"Hey guys! Listen to this!" Michi demanded, jarring him out of his reverie. "What did one shepherd say to the other?"

Keichi rolled his eyes.

"What?"

"Let's get the flock outta here!" he answered, laughing at his own joke with the hilarity of one who had had quite enough to drink.

Shingo and Keichi emitted identical groans of pure agony.

"So Shingo, where's Takeshi?" asked Keichi, pointedly ignoring Michio and changing the subject. "Didn't you invite him?"

"Oh, he said he was busy."

"Geez, he's busy all the time these days," sighed the 180 driver.

"Yeah, I guess his office really needs him."

"We need him too!" Michio asserted, sloshing beer on himself in his zeal.

Me too, Shingo didn't add.

For some reason which he failed to fully understand, Takeshi needed to work practically fourteen hours a day, six days a week. He was never around anymore, and frankly, Shingo missed him. But he knew better than to mention it. Takeshi didn't need him whining about not spending any time with him when the GT-R driver obviously had more important things to worry about. Besides, more often than not whenever they were together, they wound up fighting anyway.

"That's true," Keichi replied to Michio's drunken though accurate comment. "It's like he doesn't have time to run the team anymore. I mean, when was the last time he came to a meet? Does he even practice anymore?" The last question was apparently aimed at Shingo, because both drivers turned to him expectantly.

"I don't know, and I don't care." Both Night Kids drivers frowned. "Takeshi's personal practices are none of our business."

"They are when they affect the team," Keichi stated, Michio nodding his agreement.

"Give him a break, it's not like he isn't under a lot of pressure. Besides, don't you think he feels bad enough without us rubbing it in?"

After his crushing defeat by Emperor, the GT-R driver's morale had hit an all time low. Takeshi was quite the resolute optimist, but even he couldn't withstand so many losses without some damage to his confidence.

"Shingo, you're acting like it's no big deal. Do you realize that's three big losses in a row now? If this keeps up, we'll be the laughingstock of Gunma…if we aren't already. I know you two are like…whatever…but even you have to admit, something's gotta be done."

He glared at his companion, suddenly extremely annoyed. It wasn't so much that Keichi was wrong, it was that he was right. As much as Shingo cared about and worried over Takeshi, he was sick to death of defending him from his friends; and, he decided he just wasn't going to do it any more.

"Look, I don't want to talk about this," he said, bringing the conversation to an abrupt close. "Why don't you take this drunken bastard home? I've got some stuff to do, so I'll see you guys later, ok?"

For an instant, Keichi's eyes locked with his in an intense, almost hostile gaze, and then Michio slid under the table with a crash. Tensions eased as the 180 driver shot him a wry grin.

"Sure, I'll take him home."

Shingo pulled out his wallet, but Keichi shook his head.

"Naww, I'll take care of it," he drawled, tossing a few bills onto the table.

He frowned.

"Are you sure? I can pay…"

"I said I'll get it," Keichi insisted.

Shingo suddenly realized that in his own way, Keichi was apologizing for having put him in a situation in which he had to defend his lover from his friends.

"All right," he conceded. "I'll buy next time."

Keichi nodded.

"See you later."

"Ja!"

With a final wave, he exited the crowded bar.


	2. Chapter 2

Part II

"Shit! What is this?" grunted Seiji as he slowed to read the road sign. "Mt. Myougi? What the fuck?" He growled several more obscenities before pulling over to the side of the road. Toggling his hazards, he flipped on the interior cabin lights and yanked out his map book.

He had stormed out on Kyouichi and the rest of the team, literally. Not bothering to check a map before tearing off in his Evo IV, he had been too angry (was still too angry) to really care where he was going. And now, he was lost.

If he subscribed to theories on the subconscious, he might have made the argument that he wanted to be in the place of his most recent victory, in the hopes that reliving that moment would make him feel better. But Seiji wasn't much of a philosopher, and he pretty much thought that was just so much bullshit. If someone were to ask him why of all the places near Maebashi he had driven to Myougi, his answer would probably have been "Mind your own fucking business," accompanied by a string of expletives, in order to avoid having to admit that he'd just plain gotten lost. Well, that, and because he truly enjoyed pissing people off.

He paged through several maps of the Gunma area, and snorted in disgust. He wasn't much on map reading…that was Kyouichi's field of expertise; all he did was drive. He frowned. After some deliberation, he decided that it would be a waste to have driven all the way out here and then gone home without getting a couple runs in on the course. Besides, as angry as he was, he could use some stress relief. With newfound determination, he eased back onto the road and started up the mountain.

* * *

The EG6 driver briefly considered timing himself as he rocketed from their usual starting place at the top of the mountain, but decided against it when he couldn't find his stopwatch. Besides, tonight wasn't about serious practice…it was about blowing off some steam. Driving always made him feel better, no matter how awful he felt.

He tapped the steering wheel pensively as he accelerated out of the corner. Rather than dwelling on his horrible workday, his mind kept returning to Takeshi. Keichi was right...something should be done. He had never seen Takeshi so depressed and he wanted to help, but had no idea what to say or do.

"People respond to compassion. A kind act is worth a thousand words," He recited, frowning with concentration as he tried to remember the next part. For some mysterious reason, Takeshi thought he needed to work on his people skills, and so had given him a series of lectures on audio tape. Although Shingo thought the tapes were the most nauseating garbage he had ever heard, he listened to them anyway…but only when Takeshi was around to hear him listening to them. Despite all attempts to block out the insidiously catchy phrases, however, a few of them had stuck.

"Now what the fuck was that next part? Stupid goddamn shit," he cursed under his breath. "Oh yeah! Good communication is the foundation of a healthy relationship. A relationship is a two-way street. Now what in the hell does that mean?" he growled. "A two-way street…hmm…well, I guess it means I can't cross the center line. But what's the line supposed to symbolize? Trust? Love?"

Thankfully, before he could travel any further down the path of lunacy known as self-help, he was blinded by a bright light flashing in his rear view mirror. Deep in thought, he had missed the approach of the oncoming car. Growling in the back of his throat, he increased his speed.

"Want to play, huh?"

The vehicle behind him matched pace with him and flashed its lights in his eyes. He snorted – there was no way he was going to yield to that asshole. To his utter surprise, at the next corner, the other car shot around him, overtaking him on the right. He saw a flash of white, and then it was in front of him, the gap between them widening by the second.

"What the hell?" he yelled, stomping on the accelerator. Despite accelerating at max speed on the straightaway, however, the other vehicle gradually pulled away.

He had only gotten a glimpse of it, and hadn't been able to discern the make or model. But it was white, and very fast. He conducted a mental search of every Myougi racer with a white car that he knew could pull off a stunt like that, and came up blank. It was inevitable, since the only Myougi racer who could have passed him like that was Takeshi.

"Whoever the hell you are, you're a long way from home," he muttered as he tried in vain to keep up with the fast receding taillights.

* * *

Seiji cackled as he left the pathetic Civic eating his dust.

"You should get a better car, Honda boy. But then, you'd still lose," he declared.

He suddenly realized that for the first time since he lost the race, he was smiling. Maybe he shouldn't have passed that guy so hastily. He had glimpsed a Night Kids sticker in the window of the rear hatch, and he wondered if it might prove interesting. The Night Kids had a colorful reputation, after all, and the fact that the other driver had refused to yield to him meant that, if nothing else, he was an arrogant prick. In Seiji's experience, those sorts of people were always more fun to piss off. Besides, whom else was he going to ask for directions?

Smirking in anticipation of a little fun, he slowed his speed and waited.

* * *

After several minutes of manic driving, Shingo simply gave up. The way the white car had flown by, there was no way he could catch him. He sighed and eased up so his tires wouldn't be completely trashed by the end of the night. If there was one thing he didn't need, it was more things to pay for.

Consequently, he wasn't aware that he was gaining on the other car till he was almost on top of it.

"Now what's this?" he asked aloud. He figured the car would have been long gone by now, and at the speed it was moving, it should have been. Puzzled, he drove a little closer. Suddenly, recognition dawned on him like a lightning bolt from the sky.

"LanEvo!" he shouted in his excitement. A white Lancer Evolution! There was only one person he could think of who drove a vehicle like that, and he definitely didn't live in the area. He edged closer to the Mitsubishi, until they were only centimeters apart. It was then that he saw the team sticker in the rear windshield. "Emperor," he spat with obvious disgust.

He didn't know what Iwaki Seiji was doing there, but he knew one thing: Seiji had been waiting for him. How else could he have caught him so easily?

"You wanna screw with me? You picked the wrong guy, Iwaki."

He drew closer and closer to the white Evo IV until…

* * *

THUMP.

"What the fuck?" Seiji howled in shock. "You stupid son of a bitch! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Surprisingly enough, Seiji happened to believe in a rather old-school code of conduct, a set of limits and boundaries that one did not cross. Granted it was a flexible code, but on some things he stood firm and one of those rules that he truly believed in happened to be respect thy neighbor's paintjob.

Seiji increased the distance between them, but the red hatchback quickly closed the gap and nudged his car again. He knew full well that at any moment, he could simply speed off into the night, leaving that idiotic driver choking on exhaust. But considering Seiji had invited this encounter by purposefully waiting for him, to drive off now would be akin to running away when the going got tough.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" he asked the paintjob-disrespecting car dancing in his rear view mirror, so close he could almost see the blasphemous driver in the backwash of his own headlights. Again, he was thrown slightly into his seatbelt as the other car tapped his bumper with a loud whump. Just as their cars recoiled slightly from the impact, he felt his tires lose their previously solid grip on the road.


	3. Chapter 3

Part III

A rather guilt-tinged panic flashed through Shingo as he watched the LanEvo slide out of control.

In that next instant, before he even had time to react, he felt his tires lose their grip as well.

"Oh, shit!"

He heard a faint smattering noise on the undercarriage of the EG6, and realized that they had hit a patch of sand or scree in the road. Cursing soundly, he struggled to regain control of the skidding car, or at least stop himself from going over the edge of the cliff. In only a few seconds, both cars had skid to a stop, miraculously without a dent. The LanEvo was skewed broadside to the road, while his Civic had ended up 180 degrees from their original heading, and planted in the middle of both lanes. His headlights shone weakly through the cloud of dust that had been kicked up by their wild skid.

"Holy crap!" he whispered, his voice trembling from the adrenaline still coursing through his system.

Slowly, he unfastened his safetybelt and opened the door. Before he could step out of the vehicle, however, he was forced out of it and pitched onto the sandy concrete.

"Hey!" he shouted, indignant. A boot connected squarely with his ribs, which except for a yelp of pain, pretty much shut him up, at least for the time being.

"You fucking asshole! What the hell were you doing? Look what you did to my paintjob! Not to mention the fact that we could have been killed!" ranted the large Evo driver as he hauled Shingo to his feet and shook him so hard the change in his pocket rattled (or were those his teeth?).

Rather than twisting out of his grasp, which was proving difficult, Shingo lunged into Seiji, knocking him off his feet, and landing sprawled on top of the driver. Regaining his wits first, he slugged the Tochigi driver across the temple, and then again across the cheek for good measure. To hell with compassion, he was pissed off!

"It was the sand, you big ape!" he yelled.

The Evo driver elbowed Shingo in the stomach and rolled on top of him, pinning him beneath his greater weight.

"Shut up! If you hadn't been ramming me in the ass, I wouldn't even have hit the sand!"

Shingo struggled under Seiji's crushing weight, snarling and growling with the furor of a cornered pitbull.

"And if you hadn't been playing 'catch the Evo', I wouldn't have been ramming you! You picked this fight and it serves you right!" And with that, he reached over and bit the Evo driver on the wrist as hard as he could.

Seiji howled in pain, snatching his hand away.

"You little shit!" he roared, slugging Shingo so hard that the Civic driver actually saw stars. Shingo shook his head to clear the haze and then squirmed out from under Seiji, scrabbling to his feet. For a second they grappled, exchanging blows with vicious force, and then Seiji gave him a hard shove. He slammed into his car, the side view mirror catching him in the side and knocking the wind out of him. He doubled over, gulping air as he strained to inflate his lungs. Seiji, for his part, wasn't doing so well either. Bent over, hands resting on his knees as if he was suffering a bad case of vertigo, the tall Tochigi driver panted for breath as blood from a cut above his eye ran down his face. When they had finally caught their respective breaths, they eyed each other warily. For a moment, Shingo was afraid he would be attacked again…and this time, he wasn't sure if he could fend off his assailant. But obviously similar thoughts had crossed Seiji's mind, because instead of renewing the assault, he collapsed onto the road with a weary grunt. He began to take stock of his injuries, tenderly nursing his wounds. Relieved, Shingo slumped to the ground, his back leaning against the Civic. Probing his chest, arms, and legs, he discovered a lot of would-be bruises, but nothing dire. The pony-tailed driver was desperately trying to stop his cut from bleeding into his eyes. Neither said a word, until,

"Fuck!" Seiji cursed, inadvertently rubbing sand into his eye while trying to wipe the blood out of it. "Ah, crap!" His eyes watered as he attempted to blink away the blinding pain.

Shingo's eyes watered with sympathy. Remembering he had a packet of tissues in his car, he hauled himself to his feet. He rooted briefly through the glove compartment, found it, and tossed the packet at Iwaki's feet.

Seiji blinked in surprise (or was it the blood?) and accepted the tissues gratefully.

When he had finished cleaning the dirt out of his eye, and was compressing his wound with still more tissues, Seiji finally broke the silence.

"Honda boy!" he hailed. Shingo bristled, but held his tongue. "You drive a piece of shit…but you're all right."

Shingo paused, unsure how to answer such a statement. Insulted and complimented, in one breath; he had no idea how to take it. At this point, he realized he had no choice but to take it as a compliment. He rather doubted either of them would survive the consequences otherwise.

He responded with a noncommittal grunt.

The Mitsubishi driver chuckled. Slowly, as if moving under water, he dug in his shirt pocket and produced a badly crumpled pack of smokes. He shook one out and lit it, inhaling deeply and then exhaling with a sigh of pleasure.

"So Honda boy…how the hell do I get back on the highway?"

Shingo blinked at him for a long moment before,

"Don't you know?"

"Would I be asking you if I did?"

"So what you're saying is, you're lost."

Seiji's eyes narrowed to dangerous-looking little slits, although the effect was rather lost since one was swollen, red, and still watering profusely.

"I am NOT lost."

The Myougi driver resisted the urge to snort.

"Yeah, right. But first, shouldn't you get that eye looked at?"

Seiji struggled to his feet with some effort.

"I'm fine!" he growled. "Just give me the damn directions already!"

Shingo frowned. Seiji was about the sorriest looking "fine" he'd ever seen.

"You don't look fine to me."

"What the hell do you care?" snarled Seiji, one hand on his hip, the other still holding a wad of tissues to his cut.

It's true…what the hell did it matter to him? He reminded himself how much he hated this man, and how many of his current problems could be blamed on him. But as he watched the long-haired driver shuffle to his vehicle, he couldn't help but feel sorry for him. It was a hell of a time for compassion to kick in, he realized bitterly. Once again, he mentally cursed Takeshi for giving him just enough moral compunction to seriously cramp his style (not to mention ruin his hard-earned reputation for ruthlessness).

"I care!" he retorted, aware that he sounded more than a little irrational.

"Why?" the Evo driver asked, dumbfounded.

"Because I do, that's why!" Shingo snapped. "Besides, if you die on the way back because of your eye, everyone will think it was my fault. People hate me enough as it is; I sure as hell don't need the blame for that too!"

Seiji cursed, the frustration evident in both the volume and color of his language.

"Tell me how to get back!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

The Evo driver's rage was visibly and audibly mounting again.

"You listen to me, Civic boy! You'd better tell me, or I'll-"

"You'll what?" Shingo sneered. It was true; neither of them was in any condition to go another round.

Seiji snarled, for lack of a witty retort.

"Just go to a goddamn hospital!" the Myougi driver insisted.

"I can't!" growled Seiji.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it's expensive!" admitted the bleeding man.

A strong feeling of deja vu overcame him as he remembered the night he had refused medical attention for that same reason.

"Well…at least get it looked at!"

"By who? Where?" Seiji shouted, flinging his free arm out in a gesture of futility as his voice echoed back from the lonely mountain passes.

This gave him pause. He hadn't exactly thought of that.

"Er…I guess you could come to my place," he said after a lengthy pause. "It's not much, but at least you can wash your eye out and put a bandage on."

Seiji sniffed dubiously.

"Then I guess I can show you how to get back with a map," Shingo conceded.

The pony-tailed Evo driver seemed to think about this for a second. Reluctantly, he agreed.

"Alright, but just for a few minutes."

"Alright. Think you can follow me?"

"Do I have a choice?"

The Civic driver snorted.

"No."

Both cars straightened themselves out, and then the white Mitsubishi proceeded to follow the red Honda down the mountain.


	4. Chapter 4

Part IV

Seiji's eye watered copiously as he carefully negotiated the treacherous twists and turns of the narrow mountain pass. Thankfully, the Honda guy was driving at a moderate pace, so he could keep up without too many difficulties. He suddenly realized that he had forgotten to ask the driver's name, let alone introduce himself. But the other car had looked familiar, and he thought he recognized the guy.

"Musta been at that battle with the R32," he mumbled to himself, although he couldn't honestly remember much from that night except Nakazato's look of utter defeat (which he had truly relished). "Wonder if they're friends? Wouldn't that be funny."

At that point he unconsciously switched from a running monologue to a mental ramble. _Ah, but I don't think that preppy jerk would really hang out with Honda boy. Those preppy guys, like those damn Takahashi's, they're all the same. I don't care what Kyouichi says, they're nothing but a bunch of snobby bastards. Crap, my eye really hurts! Hmm, quarter-tank, I think I should fill up before I head home. Shit, I wonder how much cash I have…oh, but I guess I can use my bankcard. Hey, Civic boy's brake light is out. I better remember to tell him. Damn, but I'm hungry! I wonder if he'll offer me something to eat…_

Just then, the red hatchback made a quick turn into an apartment complex parking lot, cutting his thoughts short.

Pulling into a visitor's space and exiting the car, he shuffled around to follow the Myougi driver into the apartment building.

"By the way, your left brake light's out," he informed as they walked up the flight of stairs.

"You're kidding! Like I needed another thing to pay for."

Seiji nodded in sympathy. Street racing was, after all, not a cheap sport.

At the top of the stairs, Seiji remembered that he still didn't know the other driver's name.

"Hey, I know it's a little late, but I'm Iwaki Seiji," he said, introducing himself.

The driver paused on the way to his front door and gave Seiji an odd look.

"Yeah, I know. I'm Shouji Shingo, don't you remember me?"

Seiji scratched his head in embarrassment.

"Uh, from the GT-R race, right?" he guessed.

Now Seiji was a pretty unobservant sort of guy, but even he couldn't miss the anger that flashed briefly in Shingo's eyes. _What the hell's his problem?_

"Yeah," responded the Honda driver in a terse monosyllable, then continued to his door without another word of acknowledgement.

Seiji felt awkward in the ensuing silence, but he decided that the best course of action would be to ignore it as if nothing had happened. After all, the self-professed king of the mountain was also the king of well-practiced oblivion.

Once inside, Shingo motioned to a door leading off the main room of the apartment.

"Bathroom's over there. Bandaids and stuff are in the bottom right hand drawer."

"Cool, thanks," he said with relief as he made a beeline for the bathroom.

* * *

Shingo rummaged through several of boxes of junk in search of his map book.

"I swear I packed it in here," he mumbled to himself as he dug through a box of old magazines and empty cd cases. Although he had been living in the apartment for several months, he still had not found the time (or the motivation) to unpack everything. Takeshi often chided him for his propensity for living out of boxes, referring to it as "the refugee lifestyle". He was, however, lazy as the day was long and didn't relish the idea of unpacking. During moments like these though, Takeshi had a point.

"Ah hell. Now what?" he sighed, giving up on finding the maps.

"What's wrong?" Seiji called from the bathroom, above the sound of running water.

Since the Mitsubishi driver had left the door ajar, he poked his head inside. Seiji was busily flushing his eye out with as much water as possible. Good thing he didn't have to pay for water.

"I can't find my map book."

"Oh! I have one in my car. It's got some maps of this area."

"You do," he stated, hardly able to keep the sardonic tone from seeping in. _Now why hadn't the fool just looked at his map?_

"Yeah. Here," said the oblivious Evo driver, reaching into his pocket and tossing keys at Shingo. "It's in the glovebox.

He caught the keys and peered at them with interest. _Nice keychain_, he thought, rolling his eyes at the cute little white plastic rabbit attached to the set of Mitsubishi keys.

Downstairs, Seiji's Lancer Evolution was parked discreetly in a visitor's space at the far end of the lot. Yet, to say the car itself was discreet would have been a ridiculous assertion, at best. With its formidable array of lights, scoops, and wings, Seiji's Evo IV was about as discreet as a bat to the head. As Shingo unlocked the car, he took a moment to appreciate its aggressive lines. Just because the Lancer wasn't his personal favorite didn't mean he couldn't appreciate it for what it was. Walking around to the rear of the car, he squatted, squinting in the dim light at the Evo's bumper.

"Paintjob my ass," he muttered when he didn't find any marks on the smooth glossy clearcoat. As he stood, his eyes traveled unbidden to the LanEvo's high-visibility spoiler. There, underneath the Thunders' sticker was the familiar black, white, and yellow Night Kids sticker. He heaved a bitter sigh. _I guess that's life…you win some, you lose some_. But then, because he couldn't quite leave it at that, and also because he was a rather spiteful little piss, he aimed a kick at the car's exhaust pipe. He felt the metal give a little, and grinned at the prospect of having bent it ever so slightly. Perhaps it would be enough to create a psi or two of backpressure. Positively brimming with righteous satisfaction, he returned to the task at hand, opening the door and rummaging through the glove compartment.

It only took him a second to find the thick book of maps, but he spent a few moments going through the glove box anyway, simply because aside from being spiteful, he was also really nosy. He pulled out several batteries, a mini-flashlight, a couple pens, and a fistful of small, odd-sized pieces of paper.

"Asahi garage: oil change. Tochigi Paint and Body, yikes!" he exclaimed. "No wonder he's such a paint nazi." He flipped through several more maintenance receipts before coming to the registration and insurance information. He shrugged and kept going. It wasn't terribly interesting: everyone had one, after all. He chuckled when he stumbled upon a couple of parking tickets, though. "Ha! Evo boy got ticketed!" He laughed.

Just then another car pulled into the parking lot, its headlights shining briefly into the cabin of the Evo IV. Reminded that he should be getting back upstairs, Shingo gathered up all the papers that he had pulled out.

As he shoved everything back into the glove compartment, he noticed that he had overlooked one object: in the bottom of the small storage space lay Seiji's infamous box cutter. Feelings of anger and shame mixed in his stomach around a hard knot of resentment, with queasy results. Yet again he wondered why he had bothered to extend any kindness to the Emperor driver at all.

A kind act is worth a thousand words my ass!

"It's not like I owe it to him. Shit, that sand wasn't even my fault," he groused. "And besides, that asshole started it. If he hadn't hit me, I wouldn't have had to hit back. It serves him right, the cocky prick," he grunted as he threw the rest of the junk into the box. "Oh hell. The sooner he leaves, the better."

Slamming the door shut, he stalked back up to the apartment with the maps in hand.

* * *

Seiji carelessly slapped a bandaid on his rather large cut. As long as it didn't bleed into his eyes, he honestly didn't care what it looked like. Blinking his eyes, he felt a residual soreness, but at least the stabbing pain was gone. He wandered out into the main room of the apartment, and snorted in disgust. _Man, what a pig!_ Seiji wasn't the cleanest guy on earth, but even he wouldn't be able to stand living in such filth. Not that the apartment was actually /dirty, he supposed. Disorganized was a better word…downright messy was another. Not, of course, that he was usually given to mindlessly conjuring synonyms.

He was picking his way carefully between the various objects on the floor with the intent of sitting on the bed when he tripped on a large box. His hip glanced off the corner of the desk as he fell.

"Fuck!" he yelped in pain, clutching at his hip and writhing on the floor. "Ooooowww!"

When the pain faded and he finally got a grip on himself, he sat up and glared at the piles of crap rising like a miniature city all around him. Standing, he felt an irrational rage sizzle to the surface of his thoughts. He snarled, kicking the box that had foiled him. It skidded across the carpet then overturned, dumping its contents all over the floor. He smirked in satisfaction, pleased with his retribution. And then it occurred to him that Shouji was being rather hospitable, despite the fact that Seiji had, only a short time ago, attacked him as he was getting out of his vehicle. With a guilty sigh, he bent to pick up the spilled contents of the box.

The first thing that caught his eye was a small photo album. He grinned as he opened it to the first page, and found numerous pictures of Shouji with his Civic. At the bottom of the first picture, in the space designated for captions, the Myougi driver had scrawled the date in his messy handwriting. Examining the pictures more closely, Seiji noticed that the car looked as if it had just been driven off the lot…in fact, in one picture, he could have sworn they were still /on/ the dealership's premises. He chuckled all the more because he knew he had a few photos himself, of when he first bought his car.

The next page contained a few pictures of what looked like a drunken party. There were a lot of people, none of whom he recognized. They were all Night Kids, however, because the photo's caption read "Team Party". It was unclear as to what the party was for, but it was pretty obvious that everyone was more than a little sloshed. He outright laughed when he came across a picture of a very disheveled Nakazato standing on a table, his half-full mug of beer raised in a toast.

"Musta been some party," he whistled softly. "Can't imagine Kyou doin' that."

The next several pages sported photos of various guys with their various vehicles. He even saw a guy with a pink MR2.

"Ugh," he grunted in disgust as he flipped to the back of the album, to look at the most recent pictures.

Unfortunately, he was completely unprepared for what he saw next.

The last page revealed a naked Nakazato…draped over the hood of Shouji's Civic. That in itself was horrific enough, but what really made his eyes threaten to fall out of his head was the accompanying caption, "Race Queen of the Year!" written in the Civic driver's distinctive hand.

"Oh dear GOD!" he gasped. "What the…hell…" Seiji spluttered. For some reason, he couldn't tear himself away from the picture; it was like a proverbial train wreck. Then his brain conjured the image of a naked Kyouichi, mounted to his Evo IV like some kind of Mitsubishi hood ornament. "Aaaagggh!"

With an effort of will, he wrenched his eyes away from the photo just long enough to turn the page. Then, out of sordid curiosity, he began flipping backwards through the album, in search of more incriminating photos. But alas, he found none. When he finally hit the point at which he'd stopped earlier, he realized that the only two photos he had seen of Nakazato were the one of him at the party, and the other one.

Suddenly, an odd thought struck him. Why had he been invited to the apartment? Shouji had refused to explain…giving him the vague answer "I care." A shudder made its way from the base of his spine up to the end of his ponytail. _What the hell does he want from me?_

He heard footsteps in the hall outside and panicked, throwing everything into the box and leaping to his feet just as the door opened. The Civic driver walked in, and stared.


	5. Chapter 5

Part V

Shingo blinked in surprise at the sight of Seiji, standing in the middle of his living room and looking as if he'd just been caught shoplifting.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Wrong?" Seiji squeaked, then swallowed his nervousness as best he could. "No, of course not, nothing's wrong. I didn't see anything."

Shingo's eyes narrowed.

"I didn't say you did."

"Er…right. I meant my eye…it's feeling better. I didn't see any…sand," he hedged while tugging anxiously on the end of his ponytail.

The exasperated Myougi driver decided to let it slide. The sooner he gave Seiji directions, the sooner he'd leave. He walked over to his bed (which doubled as a couch, since his studio apartment only had one room) and plopped down. Maps in hand, he waved Seiji over.

* * *

"Why don't you come over here, and I'll show you what you need to do," Shouji beckoned as he sat down on the bed.

Having completely forgotten about the maps in lieu of the Nakazato picture, (and also the disturbing mental images of the Emperor team leader), Seiji's heart thudded fast and loud as his runaway imagination booted what little sense he had out the window.

"You want me to go over there…to the bed…so you can show me…what to do?" he asked, his mouth suddenly so dry it tasted like ash.

"Yeah," Shingo replied, glancing up at him with some concern. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

"Well…"

Now this he had to think about. He had to admit that aside from feeling extremely weird, he was also feeling extremely excited. Seiji had no illusions about his appearance; he knew that people rarely hit on him, female or otherwise, and he was finding the entire situation rather flattering. Usually he scored because frankly, his car was a chick magnet. But this time, the other person was neither drunk, nor were they in his car. He frowned. This was definitely new. Finally, after the pause got rather long, he decided to just go for it. The guy was offering, after all.

He swallowed hard and replied,

"Yeah, ok."

He picked his way between the boxes and then plopped onto the bed next to the waiting driver.

* * *

Shingo frowned. Why was Seiji looking at him like that? The intensity with which the Evo driver was staring at him was giving him the crawling creeps. _What the hell's he looking at?_

He cleared his throat.

"Ok. Well, first of all…which way do you want to take? I could give you the faster way, but it's a bit more complicated. The other way takes longer, but there's less to remember."

To his utter surprise, Seiji flushed crimson, and stammered as if he was in shock. Shingo blinked. He couldn't recall a time when anyone had reacted to him like that…especially when he was only trying to give directions.

"What's wrong?" he asked, finally giving in to his curiosity.

Seiji's ears burned a dark red.

"Well, I've never done this before."

"Never?" Shingo blinked several times in sheer disbelief. "Why not?"

The flustered driver's forehead creased in perplexity.

"I don't know. I guess I never…had the opportunity."

Shingo thought about this for a moment, and realized that perhaps it was true. Maybe nobody ever taught Seiji how to read a map, hence his getting lost, even with one in his glove compartment. It seemed so ridiculous, though, that someone that old couldn't read a map…and a street racer at that! Finally, he decided that either Tochigi people were very strange, or Seiji was very stupid. Or maybe both.

"Well, don't worry, I'll go slowly," he said, hoping to relieve the Evo driver's nervous tension.

Seiji's eyes widened slightly, and then he nodded.

* * *

"Ok then. The first things you'll need to know are your cardinal directions: North, South, East, and West. You know that, right?"

Seiji nodded. This was a very odd way to begin foreplay, he decided. He had had sex before, albeit straight sex, and it usually didn't start like this. With a surge of anxiety, he wondered why gay sex required him to know compass directions. Perhaps it was very complicated? _Or maybe Shouji's really anal_.

The fact that he completely failed to see the irony of that thought was clear evidence of his frazzled state of mind.

In the meantime, Shingo was still talking.

"…so when you're facing South, right is West and left is East. The main highway is North…"

The large Evo driver's eyes crossed in confusion. What did all this have to do with anything? What main highway? Was that some kind of secret gay code for a body part? He was starting to get rather impatient. When Shouji said he'd go slowly, he honestly didn't think he'd meant that slowly. Perhaps he just didn't realize that Seiji was indeed experienced, to some degree.

Now how do I speed things up? Maybe if I just show him…

Quickly, before he had a chance to reconsider, he bent down and…

* * *

"…currently located on the east side of Myougi, so if yo-"

Shingo's eyes rounded in shock as Seiji suddenly scrunched down and kissed him.

"EEEEYICK!" he exploded, breaking their contact with a violent shove and a bone-crunching blow. The Evo driver dropped to ground like a stone, and lay still.

Shingo did the only thing he could think of to do at the time – he ran. In a fit of horror-stricken panic, he turned and fled the apartment.


	6. Chapter 6

Part VI

In the wake of Shouji's sudden departure, Seiji sat up and groaned.

"Owww!" he moaned. "Why'd that asshole hit me?"

He felt a familiar rage well up. Why had that conniving Civic driver led him on, and then whacked him when all he was doing was responding? And where was he now?

"Hey! You stupid bastard!" Seiji howled, struggling to his feet and casting about the apartment. But when he stood, he was momentarily overcome by a dizzy spell, forcing him to sit down on the bed. His head pounded to the rhythm of his rushing blood, and beneath his tightly shut eyelids he saw a disturbing amount of colors. His eye throbbed, his cut throbbed, everything coalescing into one rhythmic beat of pain. It was fairly obvious that wherever he was, Shouji was not in the apartment, so Seiji stopped shouting. With a grunt, he hauled himself off the bed and turned off the main overhead lights. As the comforting darkness bathed his eyes, the pain in his head lessened. Still experiencing quite a bit of disorientation, he laid back down on the bed. The pillow smelled faintly of shampoo, and the comforter of dryer sheets. He sighed with relief as his throbbing headache ebbed, and the room stopped spinning jauntily around. Rolling over, he felt a hard lump in his side, and reached down to find a cold plastic object jabbing his hip. Pulling it out, he saw it was a television remote. Seiji shrugged and flipped on the TV. At least it would keep him occupied until either his headache faded or Shingo returned…which ever came first.

* * *

Twenty kilometers later, Shingo was still reeling in shock. It hadn't occurred to him that he had left a complete stranger in his apartment alone, because his only concern was putting as much distance between himself and the obviously mentally unstable Evo driver as possible.

"Oh man, yuuuuuck!" came his anguished keening. A flood of emotions churned through him, including shock, confusion, disbelief, horror, revulsion, disgust, and guilt. On closer examination, he realized that there had also been a fleeting moment in which lust had reigned. Considering he and Takeshi had done nothing but fight for the past few weeks, the physical response was understandable. But when he considered at whom it had been directed, the disgust, guilt, and inordinate amounts of revulsion returned. "Eeeeyick!"

Finally, it dawned on him that he had simply left Seiji (who might actually be hurt) in his apartment alone. Indecision seized him. He knew he had to turn back, but as he wrestled with the decision, it became increasingly clear that nothing short of a 4x4 could drag him back there.

"What'm I gonna do? If I can't go back, I'll have to go to Takeshi's. Wait a minute, Takeshi!" With a revelatory flash, it occurred to him that if anyone would know what to do, it was Takeshi. The maniacal Civic driver wasn't exactly a paragon of rational clear-headedness in difficult situations, but Takeshi was! (Well, more so than Shingo, at any rate)

Relieved, he made straight for the GT-R driver's condominium on the other side of town.

"Takeshi! Takeshi, open up, it's me!" he shouted while banging on the front door. When he received no answer, he quickly dug out the set of keys that Takeshi had given him and let himself in.

The condo was dark, so Shingo flipped on the main lights. Dismay crushed down upon him when the illumination failed to produce one glaring Night Kids team leader. He picked up the phone and dialed Takeshi's cell phone.

The Nissan driver answered on the fourth ring.

"Takeshi? It's me! Where are you?" Shingo demanded, while trying to keep from sounding as frantic as he felt.

Takeshi yawned wearily.

"Where do you think I am?" he grouched.

"Uh…at work?" Shingo hazarded a guess.

"Congratulations, you get a gold star," Takeshi muttered. In the background, Shingo heard the shuffling of papers and clacking of keys. "What do you want this time? I told you I was busy tonight. I have a lot of work to do, and I don't need any interruptions."

"Well yeah, I know, but this is different! This is really important!"

The stressed-out Civic driver had a sinking feeling that this might not work out as well as he had hoped, after all. Takeshi often worked late, and Shingo had been in the habit of calling him with fake emergencies, just to get him to come home sooner. The moral of the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" suddenly struck home, with a vengeance.

Takeshi sighed.

"You're drunk…is that what this is about? Or is this just another one of your little ploys to seduce me?"

"No, and no! Dammit, listen to me!" Shingo swore in frustration. "There's…this person…and he…well…you have to come home, right away!"

His urgency must have finally penetrated Takeshi's stressed-out, overworked brain, because the Nissan driver suddenly sounded worried.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Yes, that's what I'm trying to tell you! Something is definitely very wrong."

"Well what is it?"

"I…I can't explain over the phone. It's really…complicated." He resisted the urge to gag. "You have to come home now!"

"Can it wait a half-hour?"

"No…not really…"

"Well, it's just going to have to. It'll take me at least that long just to clean all this stuff up," Takeshi said as Shingo heard more paper shuffling. "I'll get there as soon as possible, alright?"

"Ok," he conceded. "But hurry!"

The anxious driver hung up the phone and glanced at the clock. Half an hour. With a sigh, he plopped down onto Takeshi's comfy leather couch and turned on the TV. Then, he waited.

* * *

Takeshi sped down the freeway, white light from the evenly spaced street lamps reflecting off the Skyline's meticulously clean windshield. He was feeling rather guilty for having snapped at Shingo. He knew that his hectic work schedule was beginning to adversely affect their relationship, and he wished that there was something he could do about it.

"Well, I could stop being shitty to him every time he calls me, for starters," the exhausted Nissan driver muttered to himself. Although Shingo's harassing phone calls and fake emergencies were annoying, (especially when he was actually trying to get his work done), he knew deep down that Shingo was only trying to spend more time with him. If he thought about it that way, it really was rather endearing. "Oh well. I'll make it up to him."

A while later, however, when Takeshi walked into the dark apartment, he had to sigh. The TV was on, casting just enough light onto the bed for him to see a sleeping figure curled beneath the covers.

"I knew it," he spat. "One hour, and you're already asleep. I knew you had to have been drunk! I can't believe I come running over every time you call! How many times is it going to take before I learn?" he ranted as he slipped off his shoes, untied his tie, and unbuttoned his shirt.

"Move over!" he demanded, giving the sleeping form a shove. "You made me drive all the way over here, so the least you can do is let me stay the night!"

Takeshi crawled into the bed.

* * *

Seiji woke with a start when someone got into the bed with him. He frowned. That stupid tease was back, and now he was snuggling up to him in bed! Well, he was going to show that Civic boy. Nobody messes with Iwaki Seiji and gets away with it.

"How dare you come back here and try to spoon me? You're gonna DIE, Civic boy!" he snarled.

"Civic boy?"

With a forceful shove, he pushed the offending person off the narrow bed.

Takeshi yelped as his ass met the floor with a bone-jarring thud. "What the hell?" was all he managed to get out before somebody stepped on his hand. "OW!"

The front door opened, and suddenly the lights came on.

Seiji gaped at the man lying on the floor amidst a swath of comforter and pile of magazines.

"Race Queen?!"

"WHAT?" Takeshi and Shingo shouted simultaneously. Takeshi's eyes threatened not only to start out of his head, but to keep right on going.

Shingo stood at the door, one hand still on the light switch, and stared.

"I've been waiting for you at your place for an hour, and you've been HERE this whole time? What the hell are you two doing?"

"ME?" Takeshi yelled. "What is HE doing here?" he asked, pointing wildly at the Emperor driver.

"ME?" Seiji growled. "What are YOU doing here?"

Takeshi glared at Seiji.

"I have every right to be here!"

"So do I!"

They both turned to stare at Shingo.

"What sort of sick game is this?" Seiji snarled.

"If anybody's playing a sick game, it's you!"

"Me? You're the one who invited me up here, and then tried to seduce me!"

"You did what?" Takeshi shouted, glaring at Shingo.

"I SO did NOT! Don't listen to him, he's insane! He tried to molest me!"

"You asked for it!"

"What the hell?"

"Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about!"

"I DON'T know what you're talking about!"

Takeshi's head snapped back and forth between them like a Wimbledon spectator. 15-love. Game, set, match!

"Ok, everybody just SHUT UP!" He saw that he had their attention. "You, Iwaki! Start from the beginning. Go."

"I was just out driving," Shingo snorted at this, but one glare from Takeshi kept him from commenting further, "Civic boy here nearly pushed me off the mountain. We got into it, and then he said if I came back here with him, he'd give me directions back. THEN he tried to seduce me!"

"Ok," Takeshi said. He held up a hand at Shingo, who looked like he was about to have an apoplectic fit. "How did he do that?"

Seiji frowned, suddenly uncertain.

"He…he said he cared about me, and wanted to show me how to do stuff."

"Show you stuff on a MAP, you moron!" Shingo exploded. "What the hell did you think I was trying to do? Is that why you kissed me, you sick-"

"Shingo!" Takeshi snapped, cutting him off. Then he turned to Seiji, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "Clearly there was a miscommunication here. Let's all just forget about it, ok? Do you think you can get home with this map?"

Seiji picked up the map and examined it for a moment.

"Yeah, I think so," he said. He wasn't actually sure, but at this point, asking gas station attendants was preferable to staying here in the house of madness.

As soon as the door closed on Seiji's departing figure, Takeshi breathed a sigh and sank onto the bed.

"Why didn't you ask ME what happened?" Shingo shouted. "What, you don't believe me or something? You trust him over me?"

Takeshi raised an eyebrow.

"No, I just thought it was more important to get rid of him than to let you shoot your mouth off."

"I had a right to say something to him!"

"Under the circumstances, that wouldn't have accomplished anything."

"I don't give a shit if it accomplishes anything or not!"

"I know; that's why I had to stop you. Let's face it, if you could stop yourself from picking fights and being a general pain in the ass, you wouldn't need to call me every time to come fix the situation, would you?"

"What? Look, he started it! I was only trying to be nice to him, which is what I thought you would have wanted."

"Let's examine the facts here. Would I have wanted you to nudge him off the road? No." Shingo started to argue, but Takeshi shouted him down. "I don't care what you intended to do, what you actually did was nearly push him off the mountain! Then, would I have wanted you to get into a fist fight with him? You gave him those lovely marks on his face, I assume. The answer again is no. Now you may have thought you were doing him a favor by bringing him back here, but it's a little too late to start trying to be nice to people after you nearly kill them and then beat them up. It tends to make them a little suspicious about your motives!"

"Hey, none of that stuff was my fault!"

Takeshi sighed.

"Of course not. Nothing's ever your fault, is it?"

"Hey! That's not fair! He wanted to race me, so I let him. He's also the one who picked the fight. You can't blame me for defending myself. And anyway, he only got that big mark on his face after he tried to kiss me! Which, by the way, was TOTALLY his fault!"

"Shingo, you get in a fight with someone, and then you invite them over to your place in the middle of the night. It sounds a lot like that night you and I got together. Is it a total shock then that he might have thought it was an invitation to something more? Like I said, you don't beat people up and THEN be nice to them unless you have some kind of ulterior motive."

Shingo glared at him, and Takeshi reminded himself that he was supposed to be making things up to him, not driving him further away.

"But I will admit that Iwaki is not the brightest bulb in the bunch. I'm sure that you weren't giving him any signals. I mean, who knows what that giant idiot interprets as a sexual advance!"

"An explanation of cardinal directions, apparently," Shingo grumbled.

Takeshi sighed.

"Come here," he said, pulling Shingo into a hug. "I have to be back at work in the morning. Let's not waste any more time arguing about Iwaki."

Shingo let Takeshi drag him to the bed, feigning reluctance.

"I guess…"

Inside, he smirked.

* * *

Once he'd obtained directions from a station attendant, Seiji quickly found his way back to the main highway. This was without a doubt one of the worst decisions he'd ever made. With a grunt, he vowed that if he ever felt like doing something like this again, he would NOT be trying it in Myougi.


End file.
